GregHowley.com

I've been thinking recently about those actors that you see all the time in movies but don't necessarily remember their names. Actors who are, in all rights, famous - and most likely rich - but who never seem to get A-rate billing in movies. Actors like William H. Macy, David Morse, and Oliver Platt never seem to get the lead roles, but they're familiar faces nonetheless, and excellent actors.

Before I start, I've got to say that I love having an IMDB Search Bar in my FireFox Browser. It makes all this so much easier.

That said, the first actor I want to mention is Stephen Root. He's been in so many movies I've loved, although never as a lead. He's a character actor. Most likely you'll remember him as the stapler guy from Office Space. It's probably his most famous character. But he's also been in BiCentennial Man, The Ladykillers and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, all movies I love. I believe he also had a bit part in Ghost back in 1990.

I remember a joke about F. Murray Abraham in a terrible movie called The Last Action Hero. A kid (who was the only one aware of "The Real World" said "Hey! That's the guy that killed Mozart!" - referring of course to F. Murray Abraham's portrayal of Salieri in Amadeus. Gotta love intertextuality. In any event, F. Murray Abraham has been in a ton of films, as even the characters in his films notice aloud. Finding Forrester, Star Trek: Insurrection, Thirteen Ghosts, and the great Scarface just to name a few. Somehow, I still get him confused with Miguel Ferrer.

Miguel Ferrer is a face you'll likely recognise. He's been in old classics like Twin Peaks and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, cheesy movies like RoboCop and Hot Shots! Part Deux, and a number of Stephen King movies, including Night Flier and The Stand. Most recently, he took a role in 2004's The Manchurian Candidate.

R. Lee Ermy is a name you might recognise. His is the archetypal drill sergeant voice. He got his start doing just that in movies like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Since then, he's been in Seven, Dead Man Walking, Switchback, Murder in the First, and two personal favorites of mine: Toy Soldiers and The Frighteners. He also did the voice of "Sarge" in the Toy Story movies.

I probably first saw Joe Regalbuto in Street Hawk, a 1985 TV show that you can read more about in my post Television in the Eighties. You may also remember him from Murphy Brown or Knots Landing.

Matt Frewer is great. He first made it big as Max Headroom, and then waited fifteen years before giving us another great character - Trashcan Man in the TV movie adaptation of Stephen Kings The Stand. He was recently in Dawn of the Dead, so I look forward to seeing that. I somehow get him mixed up with Dwight Schultz, whom after playing Murdock in The A-Team and Lt.Barclay in Star Trek: Next Generation, seems to have stuck pretty much to video game voices.

David Paymer is another one of those faces you'll recognise and not know where from. He's been in The American President, Searching for Bobby Fischer, City Slickers, Howard the Duck, (remember that one?) Quiz Show, Get Shorty, Payback, and the great Dudley Moore movie Crazy People.

Vincent Schiavelli has been around a while. He was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest back when I was in diapers. You may remember him as a teacher in Better off Dead or Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You may remember him as the crazy ghost in Ghost screaming "Get off my train!". Or you may remember him as Bullet Bob in Blade Runner. He's been in plenty.

Best for last. Al Leong was a bad guy in just about every movie filmed in the eighties. He got his badguy ass killed in T.J. Hooker, The A-Team, The Fall Guy, Magnum P.I., Riptide, Simon & Simon, MacGuyver, and Hart to Hart. There must have been a rule in the eighties that every show had to have him as a bad guy at least once. His most notable film appearances were in Big Trouble in Little China, Lethal Weapon, The Replacement Killers, and Die Hard - in which he steals a candy bar from a concession stand just before mowing down a SWAT team. If you don't recognise him, you never watched TV in the eighties. You can view Al Leong in all his asian hotness here.